Jonah Hill to star as Jerry Garcia in Grateful Dead biopic from Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese's next film after Killers of the Flower Moon will be an as-yet-untitled biopic (also for Apple) about the Grateful Dead, starring Jonah Hill as bandleader Jerry Garcia, EW has confirmed. Deadline was first to break the news.

The film will mark Scorsese and Hill's first collaboration since 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, which earned Hill a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. The film will be written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story). Hill and Matt Dines are producing through their Strong Baby production company.

Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann are also attached as executive producers, alongside Jerry's daughter Trixie Garcia. Their involvement means that the film will have access to the band's extensive catalogue of music. There will be no need for "Jackie Jormp-Jomp" style paraphrases here.

Initially formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, Calif., the Grateful Dead are the most iconic jam band of all time. Although they recorded 13 studio albums before Garcia's death in 1995, the band is much more famous for their live shows, where they riff and extend on the recorded versions of their songs; no two live versions of a song are exactly the same. These legendary concerts once attracted devoted fans known as "Deadheads" to follow them across the country and live on today in the form of recordings (which include both fan-made bootlegs and the approved Dick's Picks series curated by archivist Dick Latvala). The band marked its 50th anniversary in 2015 with a series of sold-out farewell shows, but many members continue to tour to this day as part of spin-off groups like Dead & Company.

Scorsese previously produced the four-hour 2017 documentary Long Strange Trip about the Grateful Dead. This upcoming film looks to be a bridge between Scorsese's narrative features and his long history of rock music documentaries and concert films, which began with his job as an editor on 1970's legendary Woodstock and has continued with films about Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and The Band, among others.

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• Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon heads to Apple TV+
• The four-hour Grateful Dead documentary, reviewed by a Deadhead
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